


Snapdragons

by DarkBlue



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Marauders, Marauders Friendship, Prompt Fic, Tumblr Prompt, jily, wolfstar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-01
Updated: 2018-08-01
Packaged: 2019-06-20 00:42:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15522297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkBlue/pseuds/DarkBlue
Summary: “No, I don’t want purple snapdragons for my funeral, Sirius.”“What do you want?” Sirius asked in the silence, and it became very brittle, and very strained. The four looked at each other, suddenly wide-eyed and scared. There was a war on, after all. And three of them, at least, had joined up. They were of age.





	Snapdragons

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr Prompt by an anonymous request  
> For my fic celebration on marauders70s, tagged #m70sfics

**YEAR 7, MAUNDY THURSDAY APRIL 12, 1979**

“Shut up,” said Sirius lazily, carding his fingers through his long bangs to push them back from his face.

James only laughed and toed off one of his perpetually muddy trainers. It fell the few inches between his long leg and Sirius’ head and hit his gelled hair squarely.

"Oi!” Sirius barked, glaring up at James. James was floating three feet above the train bench, biting into his fourth fizzing whizbee, the sherbet ball dripping a bit down his chin as he broke the tart exterior.

“James,” sighed Remus, scooting further from Sirius so as not to be dripped on by lime sherbet on his open book. “We’ve told you not to eat whizbees on the train.”

“Or in bed,” added Peter helpfully. “You always get tangled in the curtains.”

“Or the rafters,” agreed Remus, turning a page of his book thoughtfully and scowling when James’ socked and rather smelly foot smacked him in the ear.

“Can’t help it,” said James grandly.

“You very well can,” Sirius said irritably, rubbing his head where he had been kicked. “You might have caved my skull in.”

“Would not,” said James breezily. “You’re too thick headed for that.”

“ _I’m_ thick headed?” Sirius asked incredulously. “You’ve got prongs sprouting out _your_ swollen head.”

“You’re just lucky Lily’s not here, or she might deflate you,” Peter added, grinning up at James, who had now risen so high he was half flattened against the compartment ceiling and looking stubbornly like he wasn’t bothered by the fact.

“She would not,” James said flatly. “She’d come up and join me.”

"Put your shoes back on. I’m suffocating,” Sirius complained.

“You put them on.”

Sirius glanced at Remus, and they both grinned conspiratorially. They took out their wands.

“With your hands! Your hands!” James yelped as they both said:

_"Waddiwasi!”_

Both James’ fallen trainers ricocheted from the compartment floor to brain James hard: one in the ribs, making him yelp, and one between the legs, which made his face go so white he dropped suddenly out of the air, the spell knocked out of him. He landed face first on Peter, who made a funny crumpled sound.

"Sirius,” gasped James, his face very red.

The other three laughed and Peter pushed James upright to lean against the window, his hands balled in his lap.

“It was a _low_ blow,” Sirius agreed, grinning.

“I’m dead,” James said dramatically, his voice slowly losing some of the tight pain. “You’ve _killed_ me.”

“Only your ability to bear children,” Sirius retorted cheerfully.

“Yeah and we’re still confused why Lily would sleep with you,” added Peter.

James thumped him with a backhand slap across the chest, and Peter yelped like a wounded dog.

“Hey!”

“Yeah, it’s only true,” Sirius grinned.

James tried to kick him, but Sirius grabbed his socked foot and Remus leaned forward with his wand, running it along the soles as James twitched.

“Betrayal!” James bellowed. “Betrayed by my brother!” he gasped dramatically, managing to wrench his foot out of Sirius’ grasp and kick him accidentally across the jaw.

“OUCH,” yelled Sirius back, despite being very flushed and pleased with being called James’ brother. He had declined the formal adoption proceedings Aunt Mia had started, especially after James’ father had died at the end of last year. It had been too painful for her to try to adopt Sirius without her husband, and so he was only a son in heart, but not in name.

“And _you_ ,” yelled James, oblivious of Sirius’ thoughts. As always, James had a problem with volume control. He had taken Remus’ betrayal more seriously, as Remus wasn’t the constant wrestling partner, companion, and prankster Sirius was. “You’ve finished me off. The only loyal one here is Peter!” He flung his arm around Peter’s shoulder and leaned onto his shorter friend.

Peter flushed red at James’ unexpected praise and then grunted as James let his whole body go slack. Peter unceremoniously dumped him to the floor where James lay like a deboned fish.

"James,” sighed Remus. “What are you doing?”

“You’ve killed me,” James said, his eyes squeezed shut behind his glasses. He didn’t look remotely dead. His face was scrunched in concentration to lay still. James had a great deal of trouble staying still.

“Is this your funeral?” Sirius asked sarcastically. “As we stand over your grave?”

James’ eyes popped open as he stared up at the tangle of legs over the bench seats of the train compartment. He grinned delightedly. “Yes. Absolutely. Someone give a eulogy. Peter, as my only true friend, you’re first. Make it good. Make us all cry.”

“Er…” said Peter, glancing in bewilderment at Remus and Sirius.

"Wow,” said James, not waiting five seconds for him to begin speaking. “Not even a word? Not even a tear? Cold, Pete.”

“Give me a chance!” stammered Peter.

“Yes, well we better prepare James for burial,” said Remus with a straight face, shrugging out of his robes and draping them like a parachute over James so he was hidden in a shroud.

“Hey!” James’ voice was muffled and indignant from under the robes.

“Time to throw dirt,” said Sirius, also enjoying the baiting. He scattered crumbs from a half finished Cauldron Cake.

“ _Hey!_ ”

“Lily will be crushed,” said Remus somberly.

“She’ll live,” said Peter.

“HEY!” yelped James, wrestling the hot fabric down over his face. It took his glasses with it and he squinted, blind, at the blurry figures above him. He could tell them by their coloring: Sirius with his black hair, Remus with his light brown, and Peter with his mousy curls.

“Should we give him flowers?” said Remus angelically, waving his wand over James’ head as he struggled to sit up. With a twitch, James was wearing a white lily crown.

Sirius kept him down with a firm foot, his lips twitching up in a half grin which climbed higher over his face as James tried to pinch his ankle and couldn’t find skin beneath his tall ankle high combat boots. "Don’t you think lilies are too on the nose?” asked Sirius lightly, letting James spring to a sitting position, fumbling for his glasses.

“Definitely,” agreed Peter.

“I’ll give him snapdragons,” said Remus, flicking his wand so the flowers shrank. They were still a pure snow white.

“Make them purple,” suggested Sirius. “They’ll really bring out his eyes.”

“Oh, but the white shows up so well in his hair,” sighed Remus.

James, who had reached up to yank off the wreath threw the whole thing at Sirius instead. Sirius’ mouth was open and he sputtered while James frowned:

“No, I don’t want purple snapdragons for my funeral, Sirius.”

Remus relented, offering James a hand up.

James took it, levering himself in the small space between the seats, and flopped down next to Remus, booting Sirius to the other side to sit by Peter instead, handing Remus his robes back.

Remus folded him with a wand flick and they filtered down to his bookbag to fold themselves inside neatly.

“What do you want?” Sirius asked in the silence, and it became very brittle, and very strained. The four looked at each other, suddenly wide-eyed and scared. There was a war on, after all. And three of them, at least, had joined up. They were of age.

James looked down, his brown eyes bright and hard, and the three knew without looking at one another he was remembering his own father’s funeral.

“Family plot,” he said at last, and quietly, into the suddenly changed and deepened atmosphere. “Next to my parents.”

His mother would be buried with his father. It made him sad to see her grave, already prepared, already engraved, the small hyphen waiting for the wand work to set the numbers in stone.

“White lilies?”

“No,” said James quickly. “Not unless…” and he hesitated, shaking his head too quickly, and they understood that he would only want them if she was dead too. If she was there.

They were eighteen years old.

“No purple snapdragons then,” Sirius said, his voice strangely hoarse the way it always got when he felt too much, no longer suave or cool or in control. “Got it.”

“I don’t care,” laughed James, and his laugh was like Sirius’ voice. Too trembling to be real. “I’ll be dead, won’t I?”

They all stared at each other in silence. Each of their faces was very pale. Across from each other, Remus and Sirius touched their knees together. Sirius swallowed. Remus cleared his throat.

“Anyway, pass me my shoes, wouldn’t you Peter? We’ll be there soon.”

* * *

Sirius lived in the basement of Godric’s Hollow, in what was once the guest suite. It had a bathroom and even a small sitting area with his bed against the back wall. His aunt and uncle had even brought in an occultineer to put in two windows, despite being underground, shifting light and views so he wouldn’t feel boxed in.

His bed was between the two windows, and he stared up at the stars, ignoring the way his skin felt against the cool sheets. Ignoring the way he was afraid to close his eyes. At the thought, he squeezed them shut defiantly. They popped open when there was a loud pop at the foot of his bed.

“Hey,” whispered a voice. “You awake?”

Sirius lifted a hand, relieved, grateful, in love. He flipped back the covers in welcome, and he smelled him before he could see him properly, the way Remus smelled of honey and tea and his skin of something hot and wild, like burning leaves in autumn.

“You came,” he murmured into his hair.

They were still keeping the relationship quiet. Not from James, or Lily, or Peter, of course. That would have been impossible. But Sirius did think it might be too hard for Aunt Mia to take, to come down and find them…

Well, if they kept their clothes on, they might pass it off as an innocent sleepover. The thing was, raising a son like James, it was very hard to pull the Serbian Sleeping wool over Mrs. Potter’s eyes.

“I couldn’t sleep,” whispered Remus, turning on his side.

Sirius slept on his stomach, and his arms were up under his pillow. One of his hands was gripping his wand. But he turned his face to Remus.

“Me neither.”

“Is it because of the train?”

“Yeah.”

“Me too.”

There was a silence.

“So…if I had to…plan…the funeral,” Remus said this in a series of stops, of jerky movements, like the words were being forced out of him with an imperius curse, but he couldn’t stop.

“My funeral?”

Remus swallowed, buried his face back into his pillow. It was _his_ , even if he didn’t always sleep there.

“What would you want?” Sirius deflected.

“Books,” Remus responded promptly. It was obvious he had been thinking on it. “Readings from all your favorite passages. All of you.” And Sirius knew he meant James and Lily, and Peter. Maybe even Frank and Alice.

 “Flowers?”

“I don’t care. I don’t care about a lot. Just about…about what will be said.”

And Sirius found his fingers beneath the covers. Knew Remus was thinking of his name on the public record. The registry he had been forced to sign on his seventeenth birthday. The one that kept him from applying for healing courses. The one that would make getting a job impossible. The one that made becoming a spy just…easier. Living off the grid easier.

He and Sirius had decided they would share an apartment. It meant nothing to Remus’ parents; they thought they were just roommates, just friends. And while it should have been a big step for them, having grown up living together it would be stranger not to be together than to share a room.

The silence was ruffled by their breaths. By Sirius avoiding the question he knew Remus was etching into him with his toes curling into his calf. A silent contest of wills until finally:

“What would you want?” and it hurt to hear Remus ask it aloud. Where Sirius would have to deny him outright.

“I dunno,” he shrugged, turning his face back in his pillow.

“Do you know if you want to be buried?”

“No,” said Sirius, too quickly. He had never liked small spaces.

“I don’t think I would either,” said Remus quietly. “Maybe if it was just…open. Under a tree.”

"A tree?”

“Like the passage to the Whomping Willow. It would remind me of that.”

"You want me to plant a new Whomping Willow over your dumb bones?” And Sirius fingered his lover’s ribs until Remus shrieked with laughter, clapping his hand over his mouth and glaring reproachfully at Sirius as he shrimped.

“Shut up,” he whispered, and Sirius relented, and they relaxed together in pieces, both watching each other, waiting to see if the other would make a move, towards tickling or romance or...

“Of course not,” Remus continued, as if there had been no interruption. He didn’t have his wand with his pajamas. It felt strange to be without it. But he let Sirius trace the inside of his wrist, where the guard to hold it usually went. “But maybe…my wand wood. Cypress. If I could have a magical trunk. One they might collect for the future.”

“Sure and just add a unicorn to it, right?” mocked Sirius. “We’ll just tie one to it. Make it easy for Ollivander.”

Remus knew he was mocking because he was uncomfortable with the topic, but he still swatted him, burying his face into the pillows in anger and embarrassment.

“Hey,” and Sirius also looked angry and uncomfortable. “Hey. Look. I’m sorry. I just-“

“I know.”

“I don’t have a place.”

"What?” Remus was confused.

“The entire Black family is buried in the same mausoleum. We have plates on the wall. From our birth.”

Remus clenched next to him. He understood what Sirius meant.

“You could…have a place…with me,” he said it slowly. Not unwillingly. Just unwilling to sound cheesy.

Sirius blew a raspberry into his shoulder and Remus laughed in spite of himself.

“You’re the corniest,” he told Remus, but Remus could hear the happiness threading his voice.

“I know. I’m cornbread.”

“Corn on the cob.”

“Corn hash.”

“Stop; you’re making me hungry.”

“Sorry.”

“There is one kind of corn we haven’t named.”

"Yeah?”

“What you are. The kind of corn.”

“Oh thanks. I’m a kind of corn.”

“Of course,” and Sirius flipped on his side now too, freeing up both his hands.

“What kind, then?” asked Remus in amusement.

Sirius reached forward, tickling hard as Remus jumped a foot in the air, shrieking.

"Popcorn,” he said smugly, and Remus had to apparate out mid-shriek when they heard James on the stairs.

“Would you two keep it down?” he grouched to Sirius, who was alone in a rumpled, stripped bed. The covers were on the floor, and he realized how it looked.

“Sorry,” he said, not sorry at all.

“Move over,” grumbled James, padding over to the bed. He glanced down at it, then at Sirius. “Is it clean?”

“Nothing happened,” Sirius assured him, a cheeky half grin creeping up his face.

“Not even hand stuff?”

“You could go back upstairs.”

“No. I’m boiling. Let me in.”

Sirius scooted obligingly over. The basement was the coolest part of the house, and April had been muggy.

“What we you laughing at then?” asked James comfortably, but Sirius knew him well and long enough to hear the thread of loneliness in his voice. He knew James had been in his room, thinking of his father.

Sirius lied for him then.

“Oh you know. Vegetables.”

James looked sideways at him in horror and then leapt out of the bed. “Sirius! GROSS!”

And Sirius thought his face would break from laughing.


End file.
